
Rnnk -VJSP\4-S 



9d 



^05€^>-^-__^c«^t>^ '^~m 



SERMON 



s m 



i 






PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION ( 



^ or 



9 



I 
Z 







SAINT ALBAFS CHURCH, D. C, 



MAY 24, 1855. 



THE REV SMITH PYNE, D. D. : 

Rector of St. John's Church, Washington, D. C. 






PUBLISHED AT THfc BEQUEST OF TIIE BISHOP OF MARYLAND AND O* THE CLXKGT fW 
5/ PRESENT. 






WASHINGTON : 
GEO. S. GIDEON, PRINTER, 
1855. 



M~-dK&5t*P' '^6^9^ ^X&S&P^' ~^6£^ 



SERMON 



PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION 



Of 



SAIM 1 ALBAFS CHURCH, D. C., 

MAY 24, 1855, 



THE REV. SMITH PYNE, D. D., 

Rector of St John's Church, Washington, D. C. 



PUBLISHED AT THE BEQUEST OF THE BISHOP OF MABYLAND AND OF THE CLIBQT 

PBESENT. 



WASHINGTON : 
GEO. S. GIDEON, PRINTER, 
1855. 



J 



DEDICATED 



REV. WEXTWORTH L. CHILDS. 



My dear Brother: 

Reluctantly as, you know, I yielded to the request for the publication 
of this sermon, I am glad that it gives me the opportunity for dedicating it to 
you, and thus supplying an omission among the associations connected with the 
consecration of your Church there presented. I did not advert to you specifically 
in my discourse, simply because I know how embarrassing it is to the individual 
thus apostrophized ; but never for one moment did I forget, nor can I ever 
forget, how essentially your faithful labors have helped on this enterprise to its 
consummation. May God bless you, my dear friend and brother, and give you 
entire success in the holy work to which you so untiringly and intelligently 
have devoted yourself. 

Most faithfully, and affectionately 

Your friend and brother, 

SMITH PYNE. 



A 



SERMON. 



EXODUS, CHAP. III., PART OF THE FIFTH VERSE. 

" TIIE PLACE WHEREON TIIOU STANDEST IS HOLY GROUND." 

The great Head of the Church has wonderfully and 
graciously adapted His religion to all the conditions of 
our being. The Church, in her appointed ministrations, 
shows that she has the mind of Christ; that she knows 
what is in man. The solemn service of this day is a 
marked and beautiful illustration of this fact. We see 
at once the natural propriety of the separation from 
ordinary and unhallowed uses of that place where God is 
to be worshipped in the beauty of Holiness; we recog- 
nize, with reverence, the great authority and example 
adduced in the consecration service in the dedication of 
the temple of Jerusalem ; but, in addition to all this law 
of reason and propriety, this law of authority and prac- 
tice, transmitted from the ancient faith and from early 
days of our own Holy Faith, I would ask, at this time, 
your special consideration to the appeal which this 
solemn ceremonial makes to a powerful and universal 
principle of our mental and moral nature — the great law 
of association. Who among us can be ignorant or un- 
consciou- of the influence of this principle' What power, 
for in , in the associations of childhood — a power 

often presenting and preserving the one green spot in the 
waste of many an existence ; the remembered parental 
nurture, the very voice and attitude associated with the 



early prayers ; the common joys and pleasures, it may 
be the common cares and struggles and sorrows, of the 
household sanctuary, go on with us through life, a per- 
petual consecration. 

As with associations of natural affection, so with those 
of time and place. How powerful they are! Powerful, 
alas, for evil as lor good. The first positive sins that 
men commit, what a struggle they brin^ with them !— 
How all the early, hallowed associations seem to rise, 
like warning angels, to protect the shrine their presence 
has sanctified ! How they seem to veil their faces, and to 
fold their sheltering wings when they are defied ! Then, 
alas, association, that providentially designed angel of 
light may become a spirit of darkness ; the book, the 
company which first taught lessons of evil, may be 
first links in one connected chain of evil passion, and 
profligate action and daring unbelief. Yet, even here, 
the mercy of God may convert these awful instruments 
of evil into good ; and, doubtless, there is many a peni- 
tent creature, lor whom the very things associated with 
his downfall and estrangement from God, become perpetual 
monuments and mementos of humiliation, reminding him 
how he had u>c<[ them, telling him what a creature he 
had been, and how lowly and how adoringly his soul 
must bow before that Lamb of God that taketh away 
sin. 

Associations of time ! What an appeal to this princi- 
ple in the great consecration, old as creation itself, when 
God rested on the Seventh day and blessed and sanctified 
it ! Can language adequately express the influence which 
that one association has exercised on the world ? I hope 
it will not be considered beneath the associations of 
this time and place, if I advert to one illustration of 
i his mighty truth, naturally interesting to myself, and 
occurring under my own immediate observation. She 



who, by the laws of nature and of grace, had the charge of 
a child very dear to me, began, before that child could 
speak, to teach him to distinguish the Lord's day. All 
noisy playthings were put away ; pictures and toys that 
would amuse without disturbance were reserved for that 
day alone ; so that the child's first associations with the 
day was one not merely of privation and separation, but 
of privilege. There was something which made him 
glad when it returned. As he grew older, there was the 
suitable story, or illustration, still reserved for that day 
alone. And, when he was able to read for himself, the 
same separation, still associated with privilege and enjoy- 
ment. And all, because it was the Lord's Day, which He 
had blessed and hallowed. That child has become a man ; 
the association of childhood has clung to him through 

© © 

life. I hope and believe that amid the pressure of pro- 
fessional cares, and the temptations of an ungodly world, 
the Lord's Day is still as ever hallowed, and his whole 
life hallowed with it. 

Associations of place! "The place whereon thou 
standest is holy ground." It was a place where then 
the God of his fathers appeared unto His servant, and 
charged him with his great mission, and then withdrew 
the visible token of His presence; where He again ap- 
peared, in lightnings and thunders and smoke, and gave 
forth that awful, separating, holy law, and then left the 
mountain to raise its head in its natural, naked majesty. 
But to what Israelite, to what Christian man, has Horeb 
ever lost its association ? Who of us could look on it as 
we would look on Alps or Andes ? Ah ! true to nature 
is that sublime and touching song, "By the rivers of 
Babylon, there wc sat down ; yea, we wept when we 
remembered Zion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my 

right hand forget her cunning." And what noble use has 

© © © 

the great poet of the Jerusalem Delivered made of the 



same theme, when he pictures the vast host of the Cru- 
saders — those mailed, fierce, and bloody men— falling on 
their knees as they come in sight of Zion and of Calvary, 
smiting their breasts and confessing their sins !* In truth, 



♦ I give in a note the passage from the Jerusalem Delivered, to which refer- 
ence is here made. It is from Wiflen's fine translation of that Poem : 

To the pure pleasure which that first far view 
In their reviving spirits sweetly shed, 
Succeed* a deep contrition, feelings new : 
Grief touch'd with awe, affection mix'd with dread ; 
Scarce dare they now upraise the abject head, 
Or turn toward Zion their desiring eyes, 
The elected city! where Messias bled, 
Defrauded Death of his long tyrannies, 
New clothed with limbs of life, and reassnmed the skies ! 

Low accents, plaintive whispers, groans profound. 
Sighs of a nation that in gladness grieves. 
And melancholy murmurs float around, 
Till the sad air a thrilling sound receives, 
Like that which sobs amid the dying leaves. 
When with autumnal winds the forest waves,- 
Or dash of an insurgent sea that heaves 
On lonely rocks, or lock'd in weeping caves, 
Hoarse through their hollow aisles in wild low cadence raves. 

Each, at his Chief's example, lays aside 
His scarf and feather'd casque, with every gay 
And glitt'ring ornament of knightly pride, 
And barefoot treads the consecrated way, 
Their proud thoughts fashioned to their changed array. 
Warm tears devout their eyes in showers diffuse, — 
Tears, that the haughtiest temper must allay ; 
And yet, as though to weep they did refuse, 
Thus to themselves their hearts of hardness they accuse : 

" Here, Lord, where currents from thy wounded side 
Dyed the besprinkled ground with sanguine red, 
Should not these two quick springs at least, their tide 
In bitter memory of thy passion shed ! 
And melt'st thou not, my heart, where bled 
Thy dear Redeemer? Still must softness sleep ? 
My flinty bosom, why so cold and dead? 
Break, and with tears the hallowed regions steep! 
If that thou weep'st not now, forever shonld'st thou weep '" 



A 



we need not travel beyond our own experience for the 
illustration of this influence. Who that feels or thinks 
at all can be unconscious of it ? Hapless, indeed, must 
be his lot who holds not in his memory places conse- 
crated by association with joys and sorrows; with the 
loved, the departed ; with the opening dawn of childhood, 
with the budding hopes of youth. When death itself 
comes to us associated with that sad saying, "the place 
that hath known us shall know us no more," it comes 
to us relieved by the thought that though it shall not know 
us by a visible presence, it shall be known to hearts that 
live after us, and beat with quickened pulse, when tree, 
or rock, or spring, or any familiar haunt, bring back the 
voice, the hand, the form. Ah ! the poetry, the recorded 
poetry, that wins the admiration of the world, poor is it 
to that poetry of the soul which is daily poured forth from 
the wayfaring, the ignorant, under this heart-inspiration. 
Many a rough, uncouth creature is raised by it above the 
sordid cares of earth ; — might be raised by it (if he would 
only let it do its providential work) from earth to Heaven. 

My brethren, what power is therein this great principle 
of association which can tell for time or for eternity, that 
does not center in the associations of this time and place 
and solemn dedication ? I will advert first to those sen- 
eral associations which apply to all occasions of conse- 
cration, and then to some, more especially appertaining to 
this. 

1. The consecration of a structure to the worship of 
Almighty God — the separation thereof from all ordinary 
and unhallowed uses — rests on that great principle by 
which God has governed all His dealings with man, the 
appeal to the inner through the outer man. Man has a 
body as well as a soul. He is the creature of sense as 
well as of spirit; and God hath dealt with him accordingly. 
In the daily experience of life, we associate every inward 



10 

movement with some outward symbol. If every passion 
and affection had not its own expression, the arts of paint- 
ing and sculpture would have no being. For such crea- 
tures as we are, the invisible must be reached through the 
visible; yea, even the Great Invisible! "No man hath 
seen God at any time; the Son, who is in the bosom of 
the Father, He hath revealed Him." All true knowledge 
of God is inseparably associated with the being and attri- 
butes and actions of "the Word that was made flesh," 
M This is the true God and eternal life." Our holy reli- 
gion begins with an incarnation, an embodiment of Deity. 
And yet, men are seen springing from this beginning to 
a development of that religion purely and exclusively 
spiritual. The operations of the Divine Spirit in man 
are treated as though the human spirit were itself disem- 
bodied ; as though all the activities of the spiritual life 
were not those of the spiritual man. Who can wonder 
that infidelity has laid hold on these fatal admissions ; 
that after exhausting its quiver in vain assaults upon the 
outward evidence, it takes this weapon held forth by 
Christians themselves, as drawn from the very armory 
of God i Yes, the most fatal, at present the dominant 
phase of unbelief, is that which conies in the guise of an 
expurgated Christianity, which declares that Apostles and 
Evangelists, and the Church from the time it had a being, 
have misunderstood and misrepresented the whole religion 
and teaching of Christ, so far as they have connected it 
with amdit that is visible and outward. This is the boast 
of the present age of reason, made, too, by men who 
cannot feel love for a child without seeking to caress or 
embrace him ; who cannot reverence man without bowing 
the head; or reverence God without instinctively bending 
the knee ; who know anger in other men only by its man- 
ifestation — the frowning brow and the clenched hand. 
But how did Christ develope his own religion ? 4 God 



11 

was in Christ ;" in every subsequent phase the inward is 
in the outward — directly, however mysteriously connected 
with it. To show that He had power to forgive sin, He 
healed the outward infirmity— the outward penalty of the 
entailed sin of Adam, because of the faith of the soul, 
which does aw ay the inward sin of Adam. u I will, be 
thou clean." He gives the clean body to the cleansed 
soul. This is His type of what His religion is to do for 
man. And so, when He had acted out the visible mani- 
festation of God in Christ, in works of power and love, 
ere He comes to His great earthly consummating work 
on the cross, " He took bread and blessed and brake it, 
and said, This is my body, which is given for you ; do 
this in remembrance of me." " If any man love me, he 
will keep my commandments: and my Father will love 
him, and we will come and make our abode with him" — 
make the abode when he keeps that commandment : the 
spiritual presence to come with the outward symbol. And 
then lie went forth to be judged and condemned and 
nailed — the visible Christ to the visible cross. What 
follows? The bodily resurrection declaring that "So in 
Christ shall all be made alive." And then, the risen 
Christ sends, by outward appointment, other men, as He 
was sent by the Father, and tells them to perpetuate His 
work by another outward sign and sacrament. They are 
to preach the Gospel by " baptising every creature in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost." And doing this outward thing, Ho was to be 
with them unto the end of the world. For yet forty days, 
He was with them, speaking unto these chosen messen- 
gers " of the things of the kingdom of God" — thatkingdom 
in which He had given them thrones wherefrom to judge the 
chosen Israel of God; and then, visibly ascended, leaving 
the promise of the Comforter — the Comforter descended 
in visi; le form, and the promised gifts are thus specifically 



12 



announced by the inspired Apostle : "When He ascended 
up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto 
men ; and He gave apostles, prophets, pastors, and 
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the workof 
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ ;" by 
this visible act, consecrating them for their holy office— 
the edifying the body of Christ, a body consisting of mem- 
bers engrafted by the visible baptism, fed when « they 
duly receive the holy mysteries with the spiritual food of 
the mos t preC ious body and blood of our Saviour Jesus 
Christ, and assured thereby that thev are very members 
incorporate in the mystical body, which is the blessed 
company of all faithful people." 

Can any action then be imagined in more exact cor- 
respondence with this great symbolic religion; with this 
faith which, in its divine adaptation to what is in man, 
thus invariably connects the outward and visible sign 
with the inward and spiritual grace; this religion of asso- 
ciation,— than this act which assembles us to day? 
* Where two or three are gathered together in mv name, 
there am I in the midst of them." This clay has your Chief 
Pastor solemnly taken this building out of the category 
of common things. It is so specifically given up to God, 
that no two or threccan ever gather here except in the name 
of Christ; to do some part, great or less, of the Church's 
work. In the appropriate service, you have heard enu- 
merated the great ends, the great purposes for which it is 
set apart. What blessing is there in the religion itself 
which is not associated with this time and place ? The 
instruction of the ignorant ; the confession and absolution 
of the penitent; the prayers, thanksgivings, and adorina 
praises of the faithful; the infant received into Christ's 
fold in baptism; the feet of Christ's nurslings » shod with 
the preparation of the Gospel of peace ;" those who are 
bearing tl 10 labor and heat of the dav of life comin<r and 



13 

receiving their wages— the strengthening word, the nour- 
ishing sacrament. Long as this modest and beautiful 
temple raises its head amid these sacred shades, it can 
tell no tale hut one : that here " the pure Word of God is 
preached, and the sacraments duly administered according 
to Christ's ordinance/' It is now consecrated. We do 
not mean that every nail and every beam in this structure 
is now a thing having any virtue in itself; but we do 
believe that within this ag^re^ate of beam and board and 
nail, one having authority from Christ, holding commis- 
sion by direct transmission from His Apostles, has so 
solemnly proclaimed and affixed the name of God and 
Christ, that "surely the Lord is in this place; that this is 
none other than the House of God." It is henceforth, 
then, a perpetual preacher of the truth. The wayfarer, 
as he passes on his errand of pleasure or business, it may 
be of sin, may feel it. It tells him there is a world to 
come. It tells him that men have given time and money 
to place here a monument of their " belief that Christ 
shall come to be our Judge." Who has not felt, even in 
the midst of the busy haunts of men, how the consecrated 
structures along the thronged way speak to the soul an 
endless sermon? Well, then, may this, amid its sweet 
retirement. 

Oh ! thus let it ever speak to 5'ou, my brethren ; let its 
very site be associated with its work. As you stand on 
this beauteous eminence, and look down upon that lovely 
vale, that glorious river, thank God who has made such 
a dwelling-place for man. As you survey that growing 
city, the heart of a great nation ; its Capitol spreading in 
majestic proportions ; its porticoed halls rising, suitable 
types of the power of a great and free people ; — thank 
God that amid a world where there is so much despotism, 
so much lawlessness, your lot is cast here. But still, 
remember that you look down on a world of sin and 



wickedness, on a place oft polluted with intrigue and 
hgacy. Then, let these sacred walls tell you that 
what they arc to the eye, God means them by this conse- 
cration to become to the soul. Raised above, the lower 
world, ,.s din, its blasphemy, this Church will often bask 
m the pure sunlight, while all below is shrowded in mist- 
emblem ol every soul's condition which, coming from out 
the beaten highway of passion, interest, or sin, enters 
lure to be alone -\\itli God. 

2. I turn from these general topics, imp ■fectlv enume- 
rated as they have been, to the associations (interesting 
to my own mind, and I trust to yours) which are more 
immediately connected with the consecration of this 
Church. Elevating and beautiful as are the associations 
linked with every such event, as telling of one more place 
where the word of life and salvation is delivered, and 
the name ol Cod duly worshipped, we may feel this day 
a peculiar joy, not only as this is the first 'in a place and 
amid a population remote from any place of worship, but 
as it is the first amid a population who, by their very 
position, are exposed to much spiritual destitution. 

It does not require much observation of our larger 
cities to know that nowhere is there ordinarily less spirit- 
ual culture, than in their immediate vicinage." The o'er- 
shadowing influence of a city is felt, not° merely in the 
absorbing secular interests and the contagion incident 
to crowded ham-its of men, unredeemed bv the counter- 
acting movements operating within the city itself; but 
we find commonly, that the whole moral and religious 
effort of a city, is directed to two points— the evifthat 
is directly before them, and that which is far off. You 
may find Christian people diligent in searching out the 
lanes and streets around them, diligent in sending the 
light of Gospel truth to regions remote, but utterly 
forgetful of that zone which belts their city in, on which 



their eyes are daily resting, which their feet may daily 
traverse. There i> a population near enough to he 
considered as common sharers in their privileges, if they 

choose to seek them: yet far enough to involve such 
frequent obstacles to seeking, that fmallv all habit, all 
desire to seek are lost. Every evil influence of a city 
is felt, the solitary good is weakened, perhaps annihiliated. 
I lived for some years within a lew miles of a great city, 
amid a population where poverty was unknown, except 
that most dismal poverty to which 1 now advert. The fact 
on which I have been commenting was forced painfully 
on my observation. 1 never knew so godless a region, 
and one so content to he so. They felt like the Laodi- 
ceans of old, as though "they were rich, and increased 
with goods, and had need of nothing." Now, although 
our own adjoining city has scarcely reached the point to 
produce all this evil, yet the rapid advance in wealth, 
population, and all their incidental consequences, have 
impressed on my mind very serious apprehensions re- 
specting the interesting region lying around us. Believe 
me f my brethren, you cannot over-estimate the import- 
ance of this anticipatory breakwater which you have set 
to stem the rising deluge. To tell you all I think or 
feel on such a theme, would make a sermon in itself. I 
thank and bless you, as a minister of Christ's Church ; 
your children will bless you; yea ! children yet unborn — 

May, in the last <iec : ^ivo day, 
Make it before the world appear 
That they were born for glory, here. 

I pass to other associations ; to those connected with 
the beginning, the progress, the result this day consum- 
ated — all teaching, all hallowed and beautiful. 

That beginning, many of you know how seemingly 
hopeless it was. Ah ! what a lesson for faith and 



16 



patient waiting upon God. With that beginning be ever 
associated the name of Ten Broeck, that faithful brother 
Wisely, patiently, was all that work devised, of which you 
and yours will long, I trust, enjoy the benefit. Sweet 
and gentle and self denying co-operators had he, some 
now with God. 

In its progress, what a labor of love it was what 
union characterized and blessed it ! Be the lesson never 
forgotten, that what brought the blessing must still be 
cherished to retain it. 

And now in its result, it is a monument of association,. 
I cannot look around me, without noting tokens of what 
1'beral hands have given, which, I pray God, may find 
treasure laid up in heaven,-tokens of what sainted 
spirits prayed and labored for. Let it be permitted to 
your preacher to say, that amid this crowd of associ- 
ations, he is not without his own, most precious and 
dear to him. When it pleased God to take a daughter 
lrom us, the only relics of what she could call her own 
convertible into any earthly value, were dedicated to 
God s altar-service here. The other chalice is a legacy 
from my daughter in the faith. Crowning joy is It to 
my heart this day, that it brings, thus associated with it, 
the dear names of Meeta Graham, and Margaret Pyne 
Oh ! may we all feel this day, that when the hymn arises 
"with angels and archangels, and all the company of 
heaven," our dead, who now swell the heavenly company 
are with us in the communion of saints; how near, they 
know, we cannot ; the veil is over our eyes, not theirs 

Brethren beloved in the Lord, show your thankful- 
ness for the great blessing now vouchsafed you— your 
beautiful, your free church, where the poorest of God's 
creatures may come and worship, side by side, with the 
wealthiest and mightiest. Show it by manifesting that 
what is here consecrated to the Lord of Life and Glory, 






17 

is held most sacred by you. Show it in the serious de- 
votion, in the reverent action, which beseems the place 
where God is specially present ; where you come to hear 
of heaven, and heavenly things. Let the young and im- 
itative learn from you u how to behave themselves in 
the house of God, which is the church of the living God, 
the pillar and ground of the truth." Then shall this 
church not only become associated in your own minds 
with ever increasing appreciation of the comfortable 
Gospel, with ever enlarging comprehension of what God 
makes known to man in Christ; but when that hour 
comes to you which comes to all ; when, perchance, these 
walls, that often echoed back your prayers, shall enclose 
the gathered group who have brought your earthly 
tabernacle for the Church's last solemnity, then this place, 
which shall know you no more, shall speak its own 
requiem to mourning parent, brother, sister, child ; ever 
associated with remembered words of prayer and praise; 
with remembered acts of holy reverence. 

[This was not in fact the end of my sermon ; the following passage, 
omitted by the Bishop's injunction from the body of my discourse, I 
take the liberty of giving in a note, hoping that my revered Diocesan 
and friend will pardon this seeming evasion of his earnest request. It 
would have given me such pain to suppress this feeble tribute that I 
venture to hope, the gratification to myself will reconcile him to the 
embarrassment produced by my utterance of these words at the time 
and their publication now.] 

My office, my brethren is now done ; it has been a 
delegated one, delegated by an authority which it is my 
duty as it is my delight to obey. Not mine the voice 
you should have heard this day, but one that ever speaks 
with wisdom and with power ; amid the associations of 
this day, let not that one pass from your memory. Your 
Bishop's voice it is which has set apart this House of God. 
2 



18 

Let his greut function this day be a fresh link between 
you and him. The voice that God's visiting hand lias 
made weak for human ear, offers us all up daily before 
God in prayers fervent and effectual. Let our daily and 
earnest prayers be offered for him on whose anxious, 
loving spirit cometh " the care of all the churches." 



APPENDIX 



On the 24th day of May, 1855, St. Alban's Church, D. C, was 
consecrated to the worship and service of Almighty God, by the Bishop 
of Maryland, in the presence of a large congregation. The following 
Presbyters of the Diocese took part in the services : The Revs. Ethan 
Allen, James A. Buck, William J. Clark, John W. French, William 
Norwood, D. D., Oliver S. Prescott, Smith Pyne, D. D., Arthur J. 
Rich, M. D., Henry Stanley, N. P. Tillinghast, G. F. Worthington, 
and the Rector of the parish. At a meeting of the clergy, held after 
the service, the Rev. Dr. Pyne was unanimously requested to submit 
for publication the sermon delivered by him on the occasion. At the 
same time, the Rev. W. J. Clark and the Rector were desired by the 
Bishop to prepare, to be printed in connexion therewith, a brief sketch 
of the history of St. Alban's Parish. This duty they very cheerfully 
discharge. 

In 1846, the St. John's Institute for boys was opened at Mt. Alban, 
D. C., by the Rev. Joseph Spencer, D. D., and James A. McKenney, 
and services for the pupils were commenced in the school-room of the 
Institution. In 1847, the Rev. Anthony Ten Broeck, having succeeded 
the above-named gentlemen, fitted up the chapel for the sole use of 
the school. In the course of the next year, however, one family in 
the neighborhood began to attend, and in the year 1848, Mt. Alban 
was made a Missionary Station, and the Rev. A. Ten Broeck was 
appointed Missionary. During two succeeding years, two other families 
became regular attendants in the services of the chapel. In March, 
1850, on the decease of Miss Phebe P. M. Nourse, the sum of $30 
was found to have been left by her, with the request that it should be 
placed in Mr. Ten Broeck's hands towards the erection of a church at 



19 

Mt. Alban. This, offered on the altar, Sunday, March 16, 1851, was 
the first gift for this purpose. From this period to July, 1853, the 
date of Mr. Ten Broeck's removal, collections were made through the 
offertory, and contributions were received from various sources for the 
same object. It is not proposed to enumerate here these free-will offer- 
ings of the kind hearts of Christian people. They came from Baltimore, 
Washington, Georgetown, Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York, 
in amounts varying from five dollars to two hundred. Meanwhile, a 
lot of half an acre was given by the Trustees of the Mt. Alban proper- 
ty ; and on the 13th of March, 1851, the corner-stone of the church 
edifice was laid by Mr. Ten Broeck. A paten for the celebration of the 
holy communion was procured, by collections through the offertory; 
and a chalice was presented, as a memorial gift. Mr. Ten Broeck 
labored perseveringly, and with great efficiency, until July, 1853, when 
he removed to Philadelphia. During the months of August and Septem- 
ber, services were rendered by the Rev. Mr. Clark, of Georgetown. 
In October, 1853. the Rev. W. L. Childs, by invitation of persons 
worshipping at Mt. Alban, and at the desire of the Bishop of Maryland, 
assumed the Missionary charge. He found a few earnest and devoted 
people assembled in an upper room, simply yet appropriately arranged 
for the purposes of divine service. The church building had then ad- 
vanced so far as to be roofed in ; but this was all. The writer well 
remembers how mournfully incomplete it seemed through the long winter, 
as he passed it in his daily walks of duty. In the spring of 1854, the 
work upon it was re-commenced ; and on the second Sunday after Easter, 
ApFil 30th, St. Alban's Church was opened for the first time with ser- 
vice and holy communion. From this period the parish dates a rapid 
and constant increase in strength and prosperity. The attendance of 
the poorer classes has been large, and the zeal manifested by all most 
encouraging. The necessary steps for the organization of a parish 
were taken, in accordance with the laws of the Diocese of Maryland. At 
length it was permitted, on the 24th of May, 1855, to offer the church, 
free of debt, for consecration. The design was furnished by Mr. F. 
Wills, of New York. It has cost not far from three thousand dollars. 
It is built of wood, painted and sanded, and has seats to accommodate 
more than two hundred people. It has a nave and chancel— the lat- 
ter about one-third the whole length, and is entered by a south porch. 
The stone font standing by the door was the gift of a pupil of St. 
John's Institute. The windows, all of stained glass, were made in the 
city of New York. The three side chancel windows were the gifts of 
three brothers of Georgetown ; the middle east window was procured 
by the efforts of a member of the parish ; and one of the west windows 



20 

by the children of the Sunday-school. The trefoil west window and 
the pulpit-lecturn are the gifts of individuals. The bell and a dona- 
tion of $83 towards the windows were given by a member of th? vestry. 
Another chalice has been presented as a memorial gift. The altar, of 
black walnut, was obtained by the proceeds of the offertory on All- 
Saint's day, 1855. The church is forever/ree to all who worship therein. 
It is sustained partly by subscriptions, each pledging himself according to 
his ability and willingness, and partly by the weekly offertory. In 
view of the small numbers engaged in this undertaking, of the faith 
and patience required in its prosecution, and of the result attained, 
there is reason to exclaim with humble thanksgiving, " What hath God 
wrought !" 



IBA 8 ?9 









t; : 



